Taraji P. Henson Sends Son to Historically Black College After He was Racially Profiled
Taraji P. Henson will not be enrolling her 20-year-old son, Marcel, at the University of Southern California after she says he was racially profiled by the cops.
"My child has been racially profiled. He was in Glendale, Calif., and did exactly everything the cops told him to do, including letting them illegally search his car," the Empire actress toldUptown magazine. "It was bogus because they didn't give him the ticket for what he was pulled over for."
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After Marcel's second run-in with law enforcement at the Glendale, Calif. campus, Taraji decided to send him to another school altogether. "Then he's at University of Southern California, the school that I was going to transfer him to, when police stopped him for having his hands in his pockets," she said. "So guess where he's going? Howard University. I'm not paying $50K so I can't sleep at night wondering, 'Is this the night my son is getting racially profiled on campus?'"
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The 44-year-old actress has been making waves on her hit FOX show, and tells Uptown that she's proud to join the ranks of primetime divas Viola Davis on How To Get Away with Murder and Kerry Washington on Scandal.
"It feels good that there's not just one black person," she gushed. "I don't like that we get fixated on one or two at a time, or three at a time. If you look at Caucasian Hollywood, every year there's a handful of new faces you've never seen before, then after that, they got five movies coming out and they're introducing you to more talent. So I'm just so happy to see what's happening on television right now. We have options and that's how it should be."
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That being said, Taraji added, "This journey is not over. I've come a long way from 'Aye, that's that girl from Baby Boy,' to now people know how to pronounce my name. But I'm just scratching the surface. For whatever reason, God gave me this life, and I'm not gon' f**k it up."